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Thursday, May 22, 2014

Harvey Milk Stamp White House Ceremony

WASHINGTON -- On the day he would have turned 84 years old, Harvey Milk,
the San Francisco supervisor and gay activist gunned down at City Hall
in 1978, is having a postal stamp in his honor unveiled at the
White House.

The "forever" first-class stamp is based on a
black-and-white photograph of Milk in front of his Castro Street Camera
store in San Francisco in 1977. Milk is believed to be the first openly
gay politician to be honored with a U.S. postage stamp.

Thursday's White House ceremony is being led by Samantha Power, the U.S.
permanent representative to the United Nations. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, also plans to attend the event, which happens at 3 p.m. EDT.

President
Obama is traveling and will not be there, but he posthumously awarded
the Medal of Freedom to Milk in 2009, one of his first acts upon
taking office.

Milk was among the first openly gay elected officials in the United States when he won a seat on the Board of Supervisors in 1977. He was gunned down along with Mayor George Moscone by former Supervisor Dan White on Nov. 27, 1978.